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Topic: Nationality in the cloud: US clashes with Microsoft on seizing data from abroad (Read 592 times)

legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1017
Yep, I don't think that anybody should own anybody else's private stuff....no matter what server it's stored on.   
legendary
Activity: 2926
Merit: 1386
Sure data stored "in the cloud" has Nationality.

Data stored "in the cloud" isn't actually stored in the air or outside of any Nation's boundaries, it's stored in servers (just like big data has always been stored). The question is where are those servers located and what laws apply to the jurisdiction of the location of the servers or the location of the company that owns the data or the client that owns the data or the company that provides the servers.
What is wrong in a future oriented sense in your statements is that data should float between nationalities, with no segment of a meaningful whole within one country's boundary.  And it should be "owned" by no company.
legendary
Activity: 1176
Merit: 1017
Wow, brings about many questions....I think citizenship and ownership are going to be the deciding variables here.
legendary
Activity: 2884
Merit: 1115
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
To my knowledge a cloud crosses all borders duty free just like a flock of birds is not sensitive to borders.
So no the cloud does not have a nationality where the data comes from and where its shared to does not matter only the endpoints of where the data is used, this will be an interesting court case though hopefully Microsoft wins this one.

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This is one strange pair Apple with Microsoft, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Verizon, NPR and Fox News, the Irish government, the ACLU, eBay and the Guardian.
legendary
Activity: 1246
Merit: 1000
It will be interesting to see how this case goes.
If the ruling is against Microsoft, it provides all the more reason to not use US services, if there is a choice.
sr. member
Activity: 434
Merit: 250
Loose lips sink sigs!
Sure data stored "in the cloud" has Nationality.

Data stored "in the cloud" isn't actually stored in the air or outside of any Nation's boundaries, it's stored in servers (just like big data has always been stored). The question is where are those servers located and what laws apply to the jurisdiction of the location of the servers or the location of the company that owns the data or the client that owns the data or the company that provides the servers.
legendary
Activity: 1049
Merit: 1006


Nationality in the cloud: US clashes with Microsoft over seizing data from abroad

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/02/microsoft-us-government-cloud-computing-ireland

<< Does cloud computing have a nationality? That's the question posed by Microsoft's lawyers and the counsel in a closely watched case whose oral arguments begin in Manhattan on Wednesday morning. The case scrutinizes the ability of the US government to seize information outside its own borders. Microsoft and the US government are facing off in the second circuit court of appeals over the tech giant's continuing refusal to hand over emails related to a narcotics case from a Hotmail account hosted in Ireland in 2013. Microsoft argues that its data should be protected by the laws of the land where its servers are located – a decision that will have major ramifications for cloud computing no matter which way it goes.

The case has made for strange bedfellows: Apple filed an amicus brief with Microsoft, as did the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Verizon, NPR and Fox News, the Irish government, the ACLU, eBay and the Guardian. In court documents, Microsoft argued: "The power to embark on unilateral law enforcement incursions into a foreign sovereign country – directly or indirectly – has profound foreign policy consequences. Worse still, it threatens the privacy of US citizens."

The government argues that because Microsoft is an American corporation, all data controlled in its facilities anywhere on earth can be subpoenaed lawfully because the tech giant is headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Because of that, US government lawyers say, officials have the right to repatriate records and the search warrant acts as a subpoena. >>

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